


Professional excellence

by breathedout



Category: Archer (Cartoon)
Genre: (no literal dead ocelots contained herein), (two great tastes that taste great together), All listed characters are POV characters, Bondage, Canon-Typical Transphobia, Canon-Typical Violence, Canon-typical alcohol abuse, Canon-typical rank unprofessionalism, Canon-typical unethical science, Canon-typical unsafe sexual practices, Dead ocelot: do not eat, Dirty Talk, Disturbing references to wasps, F/F, Fourth of Ju Luau, Friends With Benefits, It's an experiment!, Multiple Orgasms, Sex with robots, Teasing, You are reading an Archer story, and for the ever-present rages of Cheryl Tunt, author also volunteers to be drunk under the table by Malory Archer, author is always a slut for Pam Poovey, hey it's not my fault Cheryl's sexual fantasies are outside the mainstream, multiple POVs, of a sort, that while not explicitly canon-typical are certainly in the spirit of the thing, these assholes are the assholes of the author's heart
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-15
Updated: 2015-10-15
Packaged: 2018-04-26 12:45:00
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,865
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5005285
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/breathedout/pseuds/breathedout
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Yeah that one!" says Cheryl. "Yes that one do it do it do it, pick me up and throw me!"<br/>"Oooookay," Pam says, "I'm not gonna do that."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Professional excellence

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Missy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Missy/gifts).



> For those who didn't read the tags: this is the silliest, most affectionate piece of fluff I have ever written, but it's _Archer_ , so it's still rife with shit that would be considered extremely offensive on Tumblr—or in, say, real life. Proceed at your own risk. Also, I shudder to think it's remotely necessary to say, but: don't do this at home! Or at work! Any of the things in this story, do not do them!
> 
> Huge thanks to [greywash](http://archiveofourown.org/users/greywash) for getting me into this stupid show and then re-watching ad nauseum episodes heavy in Pam/Cheryl funtimes. Also for the speedy and high-quality beta in the interim between two insane weeks. She is, as always, a shining star.

PUSHING ROPE

  
Carol is saying (well, yelling) (actually it's more like a screech): "It didn't bother you in _Kennebunkport_!" with her hair falling down out of its bun and her eyes going crazy like they do; and Archer doesn't remember much about the all-staff retreat but he has to admit that's true enough. You could even say it's _totally_ true. Through the haze of experimental barbecue and creatively repurposed canoe paddles he recalls the smashed-up Kennebunkport boat-house as undeniably one of the least boring times he ever spent banging Carol. Maybe the _least_ boring. And that was with Malory on the courts just out the window, washing down her Bloody Marys with long reminiscences to Ray about her salad days, interrupted by the occasional flare-up of tennis. So there's no reason for hesitation, Archer thinks; and he's not hesitating per _se_ , he's just—

" _God_ ," Carol says. "Are you _shitting_ me!"

Like, crazier than usual, is Archer's point. They're really kind of disturbing, Carol's eyes.

"I don't know how to make it do that," he tries to say, which sounds lame even to him—what kind of secret agent doesn't know how to hot-wire a bot well enough to rough up a hundred-pound woman?—but he somehow, standing in Krieger's lab with his blood alcohol levels dipping dangerously low, holding up his pants with one hand, can't come up with anything better. Down the stairs and into the awkward pause trickle strains of the Hawaiian Wedding Song from the Luau playlist that Cyril's been boring everyone about for the past week. And come on, that would be a boner-killer for anyone, Cyril and _weddings_ —only, much to his horror, Archer feels a sudden and unwelcome kinship with Cyril. Cyril, he thinks, would understand why "batshit insane" is sometimes a bad thing. 

"Oh my _god_ ," says Carol, who obviously doesn't. She kicks her heel against the front of Krieger's desk, where she's perched like some sexually demanding bird of prey. "How were you all about giant robots when it meant getting us all killed in the frozen vacuum of space, but not _now_ when it might actually be _useful_?"

"Spacebot versus killer cyborg!" Archer says. He's so indignant he's dropped his pants. "How is that not useful?" 

Carol's eyes go all squinty. She's got her arms and legs crossed so hard she almost doesn't seem naked, which somehow makes it easier to have this—for lack of a better word he'll call it a conversation. You would think her being nakeder would be helpful; would give him a sense of dignity he can only imagine would be very welcome about now, what with his pants tethering his feet together so he'd have to waddle forward to reach Krieger's monster bot even if he wanted to. Which he totally should. But doesn't, for some reason.

"What would make this easier for you?" Carol says, in what Archer knows from personal experience is a pitch-perfect imitation of the tone Pam uses in HR remediation sessions. "Should I make a crack about your vagina?" 

"Uh," he says. " _No_ actually I'd—" 

"Oooh, does the Red Baron fly at night?" 

"—prefer if you didn't."

"Are you carrying tampons in your man-purse?"

"It's not a man-purse," he says. It's not. "It's a cross-body messenger bag. In stealth black." 

"Yeah," Carol says, drawing the word out ominously. "Pam has the same one in purple. She keeps her diaphragm in that little pocket on the inside. Does yours have that little pocket?"

"I—"

"Because," she says, "it's about the right size to hold your missing _balls_ ," and breaks into that unnerving combination of cackling and glowering that can only be called classic Carol. There's probably a crack in there somewhere about the most likely place for _her_ to have stashed her missing… whatever body part people use to mean "sanity"—the amygdala? an amygdala's not very cutting, somehow—but he doesn't put it together in time and now she's apparently started talking again. Well, screaming.

"Just get in the machine," she screams, as he reaches to pull up his pants so he can take a step back, "throw me against the wall, and then choke me!" 

"Seriously," tells her, "I'm concerned about this problem you have. With, you know. Violence." 

She slithers off the desk, and she's moved on from bird of prey to something like the sex-crazed revenge alien from that B-movie he woke up to that time in Tokyo, only without the wings or the prehensile tail or probably the ability to survive underwater or the superhuman strength, but definitely still with the reptile blood and also the urge to bang, like, literally all the time. He remembers that movie as pretty hot, though. Given the choice between the company party and a replay of Kennebunkport with bonus that movie, he should totally be walking toward Carol instead of backing toward the door with his belt buckle in his hand saying, "I mean it, you should maybe—"

WHO EVEN INVITED THIS BROAD?

  
"—see someone."

"I should see someone," Lana repeats. And then: " _I_ should see someone."

"About this obsession you have," says Ray.

"Oh yeah," she says. "This weird obsession with a new thing called _doing my job_."

Ray fidgets his chair forward and back. He hopes it communicates sufficient petulance. Then Cyril, futzing with the hi-fi at the wall behind Lana, manages to mess up the play speed on his mix tape for the second time that night, apologizing loudly to the room at large as the twang of island guitar distorts downward into a double-bass register, then careens upward through banjo and ukelele and one of those toy guitars they sell at Sears. "Sorry!" Cyril yells. "Sorry!" The room continues to ignore him. Ray, no longer sure that his initial chair-fidget expressed the depth and breadth of his dissatisfaction with the current situation, does the same thing again. 

"I mean," he tells Lana. "If you're not gonna just bone already, then you should at least have the decency to pay someone to listen to you so that _we_ don't have to." 

"This has _nothing_ to do—"

"Oh please."

"—with Archer," Lana says. "Unless you count how oblivious he is, which is 'unbelievably.' Aren't you concerned that we're now up to three times that KGB have managed to locate an ISIS agent—"

"Managed to locate Archer, you mean."

"Who is an ISIS agent," Lana insists, and Ray sighs. 

Over by the drinks table Malory is goading the bartender into a single for Ron and a triple for her; by the spit roast, Krieger is hovering sketchily, seeming to relax only minimally when Cyril finally gets the playback fixed on IZ's "Over the Rainbow." Why did he even bother coming tonight? Ray wonders. The only people who look like they're having any fun are a group of drones all clustered around Pam, taking hits in sequence off the spigots on her Jaëgermeister box while the rest of the group chants "Drink!" 

And then of course, Ray thinks, there's _this_ asshole, as Archer himself stumbles up the stairs from the basement still fastening his belt, straightening his ridiculous man-purse, and (shocking!) heading for the bar. A combination of actions that _Ray_ can't do any longer, incidentally, thanks to a certain ISIS agent about whom a certain _other_ ISIS agent is still talking. 

"Has anyone ever told you," Ray asks Lana, "that you're not much fun at a party?"

Over the heads of the increasingly wobbly drones Pam is narrowing her eyes at Archer's collision course with Cyril. Probably taking notes for the newsletter, Ray thinks, and fidgets again.

"I'm not saying Ron doesn't seem like a nice guy," Lana says, for the third time, as Ray sighs and looks back at her, "but the information he has access to? Without ever undergoing the standard vetting process? And the _timing_ of their—"

"Maybe I can introduce you," Ray says, snapping at last, "to a new thing called post hoc ergo propter hoc. I know it's sometimes a tough concept to grasp so just let me know if—"

CHOKEBOT MARK III

  
"Ya want a hand?" says Pam.

Cheryl makes some sort of infuriated screaming noise that probably means yes, because look: if _Pam_ were trying to get her neck inside the grip of some kind of—well it looks like a triple-armed CAT machine with claws instead of shovels; Pam's not sure what you'd call it really—but if _she_ were trying to get her neck inside one of those claw things and then get the whole shebang moving by just kicking with her feet, then she personally would welcome an assist. Not that she can think of a reason she'd ever do a thing like that, but. Just sayin'.

"Or a drink?" she says. 

Cheryl only scrabbles at the badly-positioned claw and makes another wordless screech. That particular sound always reminds Pam of the thing with the howler monkey down in Nicaragua. 

"I _want_ it," Cheryl is grunting, pushing with her feet as the bot's three arms hang motionless on their joints, "to throw me—against the wall—and _choke me_!"

" _I_ know," Pam says, vaguely. She's still thinking about Managua. Memories, man. Memories.

"It's not a lot to ask!" Cheryl screams, even though it—you know, debatable, Pam thinks. Very debatable. But she sighs and gets her head back in the game; tells Cheryl "Stay put," and sets her Jaëger box on the ground in order to pull herself up into the cockpit of the machine. Cheryl must have absorbed Pam's hotwiring lessons better than it'd seemed like at the time, since she's apparently got the motor running without the ignition key. How she expected to control it from outside is anyone'd guess—along with why she'd opt for this thing over the custom-built fisting machine Pam knows for a fact is stored not three feet away under Krieger's desk—but one thing you can say about being Cheryl's friend: you're constantly reminded to rejoice in what last month's staff sensitivity trainings called "neurodiversity." 

"You're so high-maintenance," she calls down, which is her sister's euphemism for the same thing. 

"WELL DUHhhhhyeah—" Cheryl says, stretching it into a moan when she sees Pam's got one of the thing's three claws moving. Up; down; make a fist. It's not too difficult, Pam thinks. Sort of like a potato planter, only if the three planting attachments were on individually-controllable arms. And if potatoes, instead of being snugged into holes into the ground, needed to have the holy bejeezus squeezed out of them in a sketchy basement lab. 

"Yeah that one!" Cheryl yells. "Yes that one do it do it do it, pick me up and throw me!"

"Oooookay," Pam says, "I'm not gonna do that."

"Come _on_ ," Cheryl says, "maul me like a jungle cat!" and keeps screaming until Pam brings the top claw down and around her ribcage and then _squeezes_ and—

Quiet. 

It's nice, the quiet. It's always nice to watch Cheryl just melt like that; purr like that 'til her breath runs out and all her strings go limp, but Pam likes—she pulls back on the left-most lever; gets the machine to lift Cheryl just enough so she's up on her tiptoes scrabbling for a foothold, and then backs her slowly, slowly back against the wall. Just held there. Pinned.

"Come—come on," Cheryl pants. Gazing up at the cab and she's got her breath back, almost: "Come on," she says. "You could snap me in half with this thing, you— _fuck_ —" 

That last because Pam's got the claw halfway unclenched, and presses it into the wall so the prongs break through the plaster and the middle section presses hard into Cheryl's ribcage. Krieger will probably assume—an explosion, or—God knows there's enough crazy shit down here, Pam thinks, as a growl comes from under the desk. 

"Fuck," Cheryl says again, still up on her very tiptoes and struggling to breathe but saying "Are you just gonna, gonna sit there—" like the hot little pain in the ass she is, so Pam locks the first claw in position and flexes the second one and Cheryl—

"Your eyes," Pam says, laughing. "They're like dinner plates." It's hilarious; Cheryl up on her tiptoes is actually clapping her hands. "You're like a kid at Christmas."

"No," Cheryl gasps. "I asked every year but that stupid cheapskate Santa Claus would never— _eeeeaaahhhh_ ": a noise that Pam, based on her extensive experience, classifies as half-bliss, half white-hot outrage. Still chuckling, she presses the second claw around Cheryl's waist. 

"Throat!" Cheryl shouts, incensed. 

"Look at you," Pam says. "Kicking your little chicken-legs."

"Throat throat throat!!" Cheryl screams. But she's getting all red and her voice even with no choking is getting scratchy and this isn't Pam's first ride on the hay wagon. If anybody's a slut for a brutal teasing, it's Cheryl Tunt. 

"And pounding your little fists," Pam laughs, as she loosens the second claw and presses the middle section carefully into Cheryl's solar plexus. Krieger's made the controls about ten times more sensitive than your standard earth-mover, but you can never feel resistance with these things unless you hit steel or concrete; so she goes slow but steady until Cheryl on instinct is gripping the metal around her waist with both hands, trying to look down at it over the first claw still pinning her chest. Pam locks down the second and sits back, hands behind her head, to watch Cheryl's bratty little squirming fit—and then her breathless death glare when she notices the pressure has stopped increasing. Pam sorely wishes she had a PBR, just for the effect of taking a swig. 

"Hmmm," she muses. She stretches her arms over her head and cracks her knuckles as Cheryl pants and glares daggers at her. She says, "Seems like I've got this third arm."

"Throat!" Cheryl grunts. Pam manages to keep a straight face. She toys with the control; makes the claw flex a time or two. Just lazy. 

"Wonder what I should do with it."

" _Throat_!" says Cheryl, and flails pointlessly with her arms and legs. 

"Hm. Seems like overkill. You're already dripping, I can tell from here."

"Eurgh!" 

"You say that," says Pam, as if Cheryl's just made a reasoned argument instead of throwing a tantrum like an X-rated muppet. "But what if I—" and unlocks the first claw, backs it off an inch, relocks it. Cheryl on reflex inhales hugely; before she's at the top of it Pam unlocks the bottom claw and presses just a tad harder into her stomach and Cheryl full-on porn-star groans. Pam couldn't swear to it from way up here, but it damn well looks like she's leaking down her leg. 

"Throat," Cheryl says again, but it's not a scream any longer; more like a croak. Pam reverses the pressures of the top and bottom claws again and Cheryl makes that angry purring sound and tosses her head from side to side. Pam could reverse the pressure again and Cheryl'd probably come all over herself and the floor and Krieger's wall, but—

She locks down the claws around waist and ribcage, and makes the third one do a lazy little flourish. Another. Another, and Cheryl's eyes clear, then lock onto it. Pam has it twirl itself down and open itself half a foot in front of her face. 

"Throat," Cheryl murmurs, staring at the claw, transfixed. 

"I'm sorry?" Pam says. "What was it you wanted, again?"

YOU MIGHT WANT TO ASK YOUR WIFE

  
"Not _that_ ," Lana says. Hopeful, pointlessly: there's no mistaking that shade of green, and Archer's definitely taking the whole bottle from the bartender with the arm that's not draped over the shoulders of, of all people, Cyril.

"Perfect," Lana says. "Really—perfect."

Ron, like the great guy everyone keeps insisting he is, obligingly turns his head to squint at the bar, where Archer is now taking slugs directly from the bottle. Cyril moves to take it from him and Archer puts a finger up, holding him off. It couldn't be rum, Lana thinks irritably, or Kahlua? 

"Looks like the fellas are having a good time," Ron says. 

"You—wait," says Lana. "You know _all about_ your wife's secret extra-governmental espionage operation, including the location of its headquarters and the access key codes; you know about her role in overthrowing the democratically-elected leaders of both Iran and Syria; and where she spent November of '63; and her personal wifi password; and the locations of both the ISIS armory and the filing room; and everything about her son's Russian cyborg ex-fiancée—"

"Well, that last one was a little hard to miss," Ron supplies, helpfully. 

"—but you don't know what happens when members of the Archer family drink absinthe?"

Ron shrugs. "It's never come up."

Over by the bar, "Hey Cyril," Archer is saying. "Cyril. Cyril. Remember the jungle, Cyril? Remember our manly feats of… jungle?"

" _Oh_ boy," Lana says.

FISTER ROBOTO

  
"Oh maaan," Pam is laughing, above her. "This is better than those porno video games down by the wharf."

The metal arm is just an inch, two inches from Cheryl's face. She can feel herself drenched to her knees and going cross-eyed looking at its claw. But because _Pam_ is a grade-A _cunt_ , the thing isn't pressing forward like Cheryl has _very clearly requested_ but is instead making that clunk that means it's locking into place where it is.

"Throat!" Cheryl says. Both hands out she reaches; tries to drag it toward her but it doesn't move, then punches back into the wall as Pam—

"Oh my god," Cheryl says. "You _bitch_."

" _O_ kay," says Pam, but she _is_ : she's getting down out of the cab of the machine. Cheryl can't—she twists; flails; lifts her toes off the ground to scissor her thighs together held by cold metal and almost, _almost_ , if she could just—but the claws around her waist and ribcage hold her tight and then Pam's standing next to her, smirking, and she—

"You done?" Pam asks. "You want—" and reaches up with her hand to Cheryl's—her throat and the other—her warm _strong_ fuck— _fucking_ —

"Holy _shit_ snacks," Pam says, as Cheryl gasps. "You _were_ ready to go off." 

Cheryl drags her eyes open to the sight of Pam licking her come off the hand she hadn't used to choke her. 

"I'd offer you a cigarette," Pam says, "but an open flame in here and the whole building'd probably blow."

"Again," Cheryl says. "Do it again."

"Hm," says Pam. 

Licking. Looking at Cheryl like she's reckoning up a bill.

"Do it again," Cheryl repeats. "Why do you—god! Do it like—like ten _times_ , do it—"

"Why do you like it?" Pam says, and Cheryl says " _Eugh_!" 

She jolts against the metal cage but it doesn't give. It holds her back, presses in on her chest keeps her heels from touching the floor and that's—and Pam's just softly, just, just _smiling_ —

"Come on," Pam says. She touches Cheryl's neck. Just touches it, with her dry hand. And not quite laughing: "Tell me about it and I'll do what you want."

"I—fine," Cheryl says. Twists around and, "It's like—like—" But how to say—when she can't move has to—"Eugh!" she says. 

Pam hums. She squeezes just a little; dips her down into darkwarm and then backs off and Cheryl gasps, "Like sparking, sp—sparkling. Sparkling all over—" and Pam squeezes again.

"Yeah," she says, soft, right in Cheryl's ear but Cheryl can barely hear it over the waves—the sparkling—with the popping starting behind her eyes and—

—it eases and "Waves," she gasps.

Pam's slippery-warm strong fingers are—are moving in her. Beating at her from the wrist and she hears herself, "like water that drags you, like—like water that wants to _eat_ you," panting, "like if—if waves had teeth and they just took you and _tore_ —" 

"You are," Pam says, "royally fucked up." But she's breathless herself, and so close Cheryl can feel her breath on her face and she thinks Oh— _Oh_ in the split second before Pam's hot right hand presses her back down into sparking-drowning with her left punching into her like a heartbeat _again_ tearing her apart from the inside and she doesn't stop doesn't _again_ stop doesn't—

"Fuckin' A," Pam gasps, from far away.

—and Cheryl's skin blooms back glittering and she can't get her breath because someone's saying in a hoarse voice, "Like, like mer-people—" coughing, as Pam with her skirt dragged up and her hand down her own panties bites Cheryl's jaw, "—like being dragged underwater by like a, just like—mer-man like a brick shithouse, like—" that surprised laugh against her ear, "—with claws for hands and a, like, hook for a cock and all these vicious teeth—"

"Holy shit," Pam says, and presses her hand back into Cheryl's throat but it's like Cheryl's possessed or something. Her whole body goes slack like it always does but her mouth keeps moving, keeps trying to talk, to say things, to tell her—

"Jesus H.," Pam gasps, "look at you," and puts her mouth over Cheryl's mouth that's still moving. Even when her tongue is moving around Pam's tongue dizzy in the glittery-black cushion of no air and _pulsing_ she still feels she's saying—

"—like—like my vagina is a heart," reeling back into air with her head lolling wrung out and gasping, "like my whole—whole body is a heart and it's swollen to like, fuck, six times its normal size and in the middle of this massive coronary someone is— _fuck_ —"

"Hold on," Pam says.

"—slicing into it with a— _what?_ " 

Held against the wall she vibrates; dangles; Pam's not touching her now and her legs don't even try to hold her. "You," she's gasping, "bitch—"

"Just—wait for a goddamn—Jesus—"

Cheryl shuts her eyes tight and when she opens them Pam's on her knees all the way across the room. Grunting, which is a good sound on her; though right now Cheryl feels like anything would be, just—anything. She's losing the cold tingling in her fingers and her feet and her vision's clearing and she wants to scream.

"Stop screamin'!" Pam says, from under Krieger's desk. 

She tries. She's not sure whether she stops but she knows she's rubbing her dangling thighs together. Soaked, almost chafing, rolling her head from side to side as Pam's voice gets drowned out by the growl still coming from under Krieger's desk. Cheryl bangs the back of her head against the wall.

"Are you gonna let it attack me?" she calls. "Is it radioactive, at least?"

Pam doesn't answer but she does back out from under the desk pulling something that looks like a half-size R2D2 with a couple Hitachi heads growing out of the top of him. Cheryl hasn't seen Pam so red since their picnic at the warehouse fire; as soon as she straightens up she strips down to just her wife-beater, bare from the hips down with her farmhand's shoulders and her hair like she stuck her finger in a socket. She looks like she could tear Cheryl in fucking half. 

"Radioactivity," Pam says, settling the thing on the floor right in front of Cheryl and standing over it, feet on either side with her front inches from Cheryl's, "is never as fun as you think it's gonna be."

" _You_ never think it'll be fun at all," Cheryl starts to complain, but "Remember," Pam says, "White Sands?" and then her hand (warm, strong) closes around Cheryl's throat again and (strong, _warm_ ) tightens and _tightens_ until Cheryl shoots back down humming-vibrating into the buzzing that's started up, and over it Pam's voice—

"Go on," with her tits shoved up against Cheryl's side through thin white cotton and her other hand pistoning back into her. "What's it like?"

Cheryl squirms. Can't move, tries harder. Hand harder buzzing. "Tell me," Pam says, and Cheryl opens her tingling-cold lips and moves them, no sound. "Come on," Pam says, "tell me or I'll stop," and Cheryl tries, moving her lips moving her hips flooding Pam's palm trying to say _buzzing_ , trying to say _huge, huge_ but it all jams up under Pam's hand around her throat until everything _crack_ spins back gasping, Pam's dry hand jolting _crack_ hot-sharp and ringing to the side of Cheryl's face once-twice then closing back hard around her throat with the stinging blooming all down her cheek and her temple: "Come on," Pam pants, but no—no air, no fucking— _fuck_ , Pam's lips on her moving lips in the squirming black buzzing gathering behind her eyes pooling in her cunt and Pam shoves into her and _shoves_ and then curls drags _presses_ and Cheryl's spine tries to curl away from the wall as she— _God_ probably soaks her to the fucking elbow.

Room reeling back there the words are welling out of Cheryl's mouth before there's even air in her lungs, "Bees," spilling out of her over their buzzing, and Pam pants "Ngh?" biting Cheryl's bruised-tender neck and her sternum and her tit served up on the flat of the claw like a side of meat on a platter. "Just—swarms," Cheryl is saying, as sinking down breathless Pam bites at her stomach and rises up—sinks down, rises up—and down and Cheryl says "like, like whole swarms of like, sparkling bees in just like a—a huge stinging cloud," and "Shiiit," Pam groans, with her thick strong fingers digging into Cheryl's hips and even the buzzing shifting lower. 

"What are—" Cheryl tries, but Pam moans over her, rolling her hips with her fingers digging in hard and _harder_ , wet-dry and hot enough to burn into Cheryl's hips and her ass; that'll leave marks. 

"Bees," Pam grits out. 

"Or like—wasps," Cheryl says, and Pam laughs, shaky. 

"Yeah?" 

On either side of the claws Pam's shoulders flex and she's panting. When she rests her head on Cheryl's hip, Cheryl can feel through her own skin and Pam's skull and her whole body the ramming of the thing Pam's sitting on, the fisting machine or whatever it is slamming up into her as she clutches and rolls and digs into Cheryl's hips like if she let go for a second she'd plummet from a cliffside to her bloody and bone-mangled death but she won't because fuck she's strong. 

"Wasps," Pam gasps, and gives Cheryl's ass a little slap stinging up her spine, so Cheryl opens her mouth. 

"And like—it's dark," she tells her, shifting. "You can't—can't see where they're coming from but they're all around you and just." Pam's slick fingers digging into her and her moaning a near-constant with her forehead rolling back and forth along Cheryl's hip and under it all the buzzing of the wasps and Cheryl says "stinging you, from—from all directions. Like, dozens of stings a second and you're—you're swelling up, you're—you're swelling so much all over until your whole skin is just—stretched tight and hot—"

"Shit!" Pam shouts and then moans for _ever_ grinding down on the machine with her teeth dug into Cheryl's hip.

"—and just," Cheryl says, "so red, so—so puffy and red and they're still—"

"You fuckin'," Pam gasps, "nutcase," and uses her hands on the claws to pull herself up off the machine, fasten her hand back around Cheryl's throat as Cheryl: "—stinging you," is croaking, and Pam goes harder, "like on your—eyelids, and, and armpits, and," rushing in her ears like Route 95, can't hear the bees over it, can't hear if she's making sound or no sound but still saying, "and stinging the stings" with her cold tingling lips "and you swell and fuck, tighter, _fuck_ , swell until you—"

— _burst_ —

Wrung out she dangles from the wall and the metal claws and drifting up from the blackness thinks: best—office party? false memory? hallucination? Best ever. 

Quiet now. It should be quiet like it is in her skin but there's that buzzing, still, that—jolting. She gets her eyes open and Pam's grinning, sat back down on the robot thing with her tongue running out over her bottom lip. 

"Mrrmm," says Cheryl, or something like it. 

"Yeah?"

"Engh," she adds, and Pam laughs, breathy, rubbing at her own clit and looking up at Cheryl like she'd done that time that time they stole the 24-layer chocolate cake that Malory had ordered for the visiting German Chancellor. Pam rolls her hips and licks her lips and buries her face in Cheryl's cunt, tongue out. 

"Oh," Cheryl gasps, "can't—" Trying to twist; shuddering—too much, _hurts_ —

" _Oh_ yeah," Pam tells her, laughing, before she dives back in, "Pretty sure you can."

AND SHE WON'T RESPOND TO IT

  
"No, you _can't_ ," Lana tells her, so Malory, sighing hugely, turns away from her, rolling her eyes.

"If that's a veiled criticism of my methods," she says, but Lana, as usual, just barrels ahead. 

"What are you losing," Lana says, "but not just—giving him the standard battery of tests? If nothing comes back, hey, great, but I'm just saying I _kinda_ feel like the timing on this thing is suspicious what with the three times in four weeks that KGB agents have—" at which point Malory stops listening. Remarkable, really, that she didn't think to stop sooner; it's only thanks to the four triple vodkas that she's not angry at herself for the oversight. 

She scans the room for convenient outs while Lana continues outlining what, judging by its length, must be a full-scale plan for the invasion of Russia. As far as transparent ploys to get back in Sterling's pants go, it is, Malory thinks, egregious overkill. Throughout the room the crowd's starting to thin out; Her Highness Gilette left an hour ago, now, and over by the hi-fi a half-dozen drones are all passed out in a drooling, no-doubt vomit-adhered pile. That, Malory thinks, sipping her drink, is how you get ants. 

By the pig, which nobody has thought to carve or even remove from its spit, Archer has his hand on someone's shoulder. Hard to see, from the back, but—Cyril? Could that be right? And: "Y're not—no," Archer is saying, "it's like an instrin—like, inst—like a, a cave-man thing, we're like, like _cave_ men, I was ready to fight, like, jungle beasts, like— _alligators_ —"

"You were the bait!" the other man says, and yes, that distinctive whine would be recognizable anywhere. 

"—or like, wild boar," says Archer, catching sight of the pig, "hey! Cyril! Wild boar!" as Malory, squinting at the pair of them over the top of her glass, says "Is that— _absinthe_?" and Lana keeps right on talking.

"Cyril!" Archer says, gesturing toward the roast. "Prime—primal… alpha male shit, Cyril!"

Cyril sighs. "That's not even how Hawaiians roast pig," he complains. "It's supposed to be in a pit in the ground."

"That's just—just _stupid_ ," Archer says. "How could I fight it if were in the ground?"

He's laughing in that worrying way of his, and stripping off his shirt. Malory sighs. The empty bottle on the table _is_ absinthe, and even Lana's tiresome "security" lecture is probably preferable to watching what comes next. 

"—and then," Lana's saying, when Malory tunes back in, "not two weeks later, there was the thing with the shootout at the bowling alley, which if I recall correctly—"

"Oh please," Malory says. "I only wish the man I married were that—"

THE TRAVAILS OF GENIUS

  
"—self- _involved_ ," Cheryl's voice is saying, as the elevator dings closed again behind Krieger, who stops for a moment in his tracks. There's a luminous rectangle stamped across the hallway from the doorway to his lab; he puts his keys away.

"Yeah," says another voice—Pam? Krieger inches closer—"It's _almost_ like having his undead ex-fiancée stolen out from under him by a round of really balls-to-the-wall fight sex has turned him off the idea."

"Duh?" says Cheryl. "What part of 'self-involved' did you not understand?"

"If it makes you feel any better," Pam says, "I'm pretty sure you've got Archer beat on that front by a factor of like, ten." 

"Aw," says Cheryl, as Krieger pushes the door the rest of the way open. "That _does_ make me feel better. Thank you."

The door creaks; they both look over as Krieger clears his throat and slides his clipboard onto the counter. Pam's leaning back in his office chair in nothing but a wife-beater, feet up on his desk next to buck-naked Cheryl, and they're sharing a bag of salt and vinegar potato chips. Cheryl turns to look at him, over her shoulder. 

"Hey," Pam says.

"Omigod," says Cheryl. "Your new chokebot model is like, four times as good as the old one."

"The greater claw dexterity?" he says, perking up. "The enhanced UI responsiveness?" 

"Um, also it's really strong?" Cheryl says, but: "Oh yeah," says Pam, popping another chip into her mouth. "You could totally tell some R&D work went into that thing." 

A crash from upstairs echoes through the ceiling and Krieger sighs. 

"Well," he says, pulling up a chair, "that's some consolation, anyway."

"Something go wrong at the party?" 

"A setback," he admits. "Unless—neither of you happened to eat any of the roast before leaving?"

"Shit no," Pam says. "That thing was glowing bright enough to light the way from the barn to the shit shack on a cloudy night."

"And you didn't _tell_ me?" says Cheryl. 

"White. Sands," says Pam, ominously, as Cheryl glares at her.

Krieger just sighs. 

"Well," he says, "contact with a number of… uncontrolled substances… will have skewed the results of the experiment beyond usability. Still," reaching into his bag, "every artist must suffer for his craft."

Cheryl says, "Uncontrolled substances like the break-room floor?"

Pam says, "Hey! Scotch!"

"It fell out of Archer's man-purse," says Krieger, passing the bottle, "when he was stripping down to… wrestle Pigley Two. I helped myself, since he was about to invalidate my results with his penis."

"Yeah," Cheryl says, swigging from the bottle as Pam cackles, "like we aren't all sick of having _that_ thing shoved down our throats."

"You could always have used Lana to distract him," Pam points out. "That usually works for me." Krieger shakes his head.

"She was… otherwise occupied. Trying to convince Malory that Ron is the source of the information the KGB has been using to locate ISIS agents."

"… Really?" Pam says. 

"She's plainly compromised by sexual frustration," Krieger says. "It's obvious that the source is Barry."

"Totally Barry," says Pam.

"Well _duh_ ," Cheryl says. From the room above, a groan and another thump. 

"So," says Krieger, taking a chip from the bag. "About the pressure-sensitive speed-variable controls on the claws," as Pam says "Yeahhh, that was pretty sweet," and Cheryl, lying back on her elbows, says, "Have you ever considered—and hear me out on this—adding an electro-shock capability?"

"Keep talking," says Krieger, reaching for his clipboard and thinking that this party may not have been a total loss, after all.


End file.
